


The Flame of Destruction

by TheClassicalLolita



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 05:50:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3476876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheClassicalLolita/pseuds/TheClassicalLolita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is something I wrote awhile ago and thought I'd never post but ah, what the hell. </p><p>Vi is in a rather dark place and Data stumbles into something he was wholly unprepared for. But maybe he can offer some insight.</p><p>Please comment and tell me what you think?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Flame of Destruction

Turning slowly, around and around. Feet planted firmly and a hand bracing against the cool glass. Darkness, then glowing light, then circling back to darkness once again. No, not darkness but deep black speckled with the blips of stars. Some holding thriving civilizations and some already dead, their ghostly images still burning, echoing a lie of life across light years.

The ground stops its sickening twisting abruptly, lurching a body forward into the glass. Bones crunch and a tongue licks blood from lips. A smile plays knowingly as legs right themselves. An exhalation of warm breath...

Interior lights flicker, illuminating the woman and the pain in her face. Her physical injury is miniscule, the discomfort already fading. The string that truly burns her is in her heart. Something she struggled to find, in this moment.

Before her, the globe of a planet hovering in space turns redder than her bloodied lips. Shards of broken terra fly outward, the resulting blast rocking the craft from which the woman watched. 

She calculates the probability of survival and arrives at zero. No living thing could have lived through the annihilation of the planet on which it stood. Guilt wracked her as she regarded a rather large chunk of matter disintegrate just before the window. The ships shields keep her safe. 

For now.

Guilt recedes, it's memory forgotten. She thinks of those she knew on the dying planet. The morning commute to work, a long sip from a cup of coffee, a hand running lovingly over the fur of a pet, all interrupted as bodies are thrown through the atmosphere. Lungs collapse as the oxygen rich air rushes away, the protective ozone destroyed. 

People she'd played with as a child. People whose hands she'd held and shoulders she'd cried on. People whose beds she'd woken in, sweaty and regretful. 

All dead.

Nothing but dust.

A laugh threatens to escape her throat, but for the sake of herself, she beats it back down. These were, after all, the people who said they'd loved her. The least she could do is feign some respect. 

Fuck them all, she tells herself. Loneliness wells inside a forgotten soul and manifests as a wet sob. Her fingers dance over a control panel, landing decidedly on one baring only four letters. 

Another explosion erupts and the planet before her is gone, only a glowing cloud of debris remains. The back blast sends the ship into another sick pirouette, knocking her back into what was in another life, the captain's chair. Her fingers curl around the arm rests and she squeezes her eyes shut, waiting for the spinning to stop. She hadn't bothered to calibrate the ship to withstand the shockwaves that struck it. She hadn't ever bothered to learn to fly the thing. 

When the spinning comes to a stop, she tries to stand but bile pours from her mouth instead. Hands and knees dig into carpet as she retches. Blood vessels behind her eyes threaten to pop and her fingers grip synthetic fibers.

Funny, she thinks. I don't remember nausea. 

When she can stand again, she slams her fist into the control panel. To this, she knows the pattern. She'd made sure it was drilled into her mind and burned behind her eyelids. She'd dreamed of this moment for so long and nothing could stop it. Nothing could stop her now.

Buttons are pressed and levers pulled. Screens smashed for the sake of seeing the red fluid drip from her knuckles.

“Life support system failure. Five minutes of oxygen remain,” a voice told her from all corners.

This time her smile was genuine. 

Fuck it all, she thinks to herself as she throws her arms up in great satisfaction. 

When it began, she felt iniquity for what she planned to do. When it came time to act, the wickedness was gone. Only disassociation remained. She wouldn't live long enough for the shame to return. She felt nothing but a sense of completion, finality.

The woman let her body fall back into the captains chair and she turned the ship away from the glowing embers of her destruction. She wanted to stare out into the expanse of nothing when her breathing stopped. She wanted to see what she always felt in her heart.

“Four minutes of oxygen remain,” the voice reminds her.

“Fuck you,” she says aloud but without the slightest hint of malice in her voice. The air is becoming thin and her breaths are coming in ragged, labored. She coughs once through a tight throat.

In it's infancy, it may have started as curiosity of what it would feel like to be completely and truly alone. In some ways, she felt it was what she had always deserved. She had accomplished nothing special. She was an outstanding scientist but there was always someone better. When she strived to be a phenomenal lover, her efforts fell short. She tried to be a reliable member of her crew but some days she couldn't find the energy to leave her quarters.

This is what is right.

“Three minutes of oxygen remain,” the voice sounds again.

The woman coughs again, this time producing blood that specks the ruined controls before her. The coughing turns to laughter but the thin air leaves her breathless and wheezing. She presses her fingertip into a droplet of blood. She contemplates life. She contemplates sentience and wonders if she ever held up her end of the bargain. The one she took out on fate the day she drew her first breath. 

She closes her eyes and lays her head back, the effort of holding it up becoming too difficult. The image of stars and swirling galaxies remain in the darkness.

“Life support system restored.” The words are wrong and her eyes shoot open.  
“Lieutenant, what are you doing?” a familiar voice demands. 

Oxygen is rushing into her starving lungs and she cannot speak, only cough. Ripping through her body, the hacking sprays her hands in blood. She's dizzy. So incredibly dizzy. High from lack of air.

“Viktoria!” the voice is closer now. Something is touching her shoulder. A hand. “What program is this?”

“I.. wrote it,” she rasps and looks up. 

“You wrote a holodeck program to simulate the destruction of your home world?” her vision is blurry, but the figure before her is Lieutenant Commander Data. 

“Yes,” she replies simply, finally able to draw a real breath. Her mouth tastes metallic. 

“But why? I do not understand,” his head is tilted slightly to the side. The dimly lit bridge lights are playing off his gold tinted skin, making him look even less human than usual.

“You wouldn't understand.” She snaps. “...I was curious.”

“That may be so but I do not think this is an appropriate use of the holodeck,” he offered her a hand to stand, which she did after several moments hesitation.

“I wanted to see if I felt anything,” she tells him, continuing to keep his hand in her own. “If for once, I was the one to bring death instead of life.”

His fingers close around hers and his yellow irises flitter back and forth, processing what she has said. She waits for a reply but when one doesn't come, she opens her mouth to speak.

“Data, I've spent years alone in my laboratories watching colonies of bacteria multiply and die for nothing. How are humans different? What are they but perpetuators of poverty, pain and misery? Replicating frantically only to die a hundred some odd years later. How are they any different? I was curious to see if I felt anything, watching them die like the bacteria in my studies,” she tells him honestly.

“Did your experiment yield the result you expected?” he asks her, reading her facial expressions and body language for any clue.

“No,” she replies. “But in my soul, I knew none of this was real.”

“But you would have perished had I not interjected.”

“Doubtful. The computer would have initialized a fail safe when my vitals dropped low enough,” she shrugs.

“Vi,” he begins using the shortened version of her given name. The one she prefers. “I believe we have something in common. I understand your dilemma. I often consider what it means to be human and if I am even capable of such a neural response as emotion. Though my loyalties are with Starfleet, I too find myself quite removed from those around me and frequently contemplating whether I am capable of feeling. After the installation of my emotions chip, I still find myself quite confused.”

“What do you think you feel right now?” Vi asks him, noting the slightly guarded nature of his stance.

“I felt concern upon finding you near unconsciousness. I feel your hand touching mine,” he tells her and squeezes her hand gently, ensuring she feels it too.

“Is concern not an emotion?” 

“I believe it is a colloquialism,” he counters and she nods in agreement. Then, as quickly as the idea sparks her synapses, she pushes her center of gravity onto the tips of her toes and places her lips lightly against his. 

They're warm, like a human beings. She didn't expect that. 

“What do you feel now?” she asks when she pulls away. Wide yellow eyes gaze back at her.

“Intrigue, curiosity, excitement, confusion,” Data replies. “What do you feel?”

“That those are far more human responses than you recognize,” she kisses him again. This time for longer. It's his tongue though, that explores the entrance of her mouth. Again a metallic taste rushes her tastebuds, but not of blood. It's sweet. It sparks something deep inside her. A tiny flame begins to burn.

Suddenly, his warmth is gone, replaced by his voice. “Computer, run the simulation of the observation bay.”

Their surroundings shimmer, metamorphosing from the dimly lit bridge to the soft cushions and small end tables of the observation bay. Beyond the window is a massive nebula, swirls of blue and purple turning in on themselves endlessly.

“Viktoria, how can you deny that of the infinite number of hypothetical living organisms in that nebula, that at least one of them does not deserve to at least explore its ability to feel?” the android sweeps a slender hand towards the glass. “You would deny them that right?”

“No,” she replies honestly, still holding his free hand and tugging ever so slightly at it, hungry for more of the sweetness of his mouth.

“Then how could you deny yourself?” he asks, turning to meet her gaze. 

“I... should not...” she felt defeated and was beginning to see the hole in her logic.

“Agreed,” his lips meet hers with a renewed hunger. He places a strong hand against her chest and pushes her slowly onto one of the nearby chaise lounges. “Allow yourself to feel and you will.”

Her reply comes as a tiny gasp as his mouth finds her neck, teasing the line from jaw to clavicle with his tongue. She knots her fingers into his dark hair and pulls, just hard enough to elicit a gasp. She chuckles to herself as she considers the programming required to weave pain and pleasure into his receptors. 

He kisses her again, deft fingers undoing the clasps of her uniform. She shrugs out of it and pulls him closer to her body to make up for the chilled air against her flesh. 

“Data,” she breathes. “Take this off...” her hand glides under the hem of his shirt and up the center of his spine. He stiffens and pins her hand to the couch at her side.

“Not there,” he warns sternly and pulls his uniform off, ripping fabric in the process. 

Right. He's a machine. His off switch. Don't touch his spine...she has to remind herself. Instead, her hands find his shoulder blades as he presses himself against her. She can feel him, hard against her thigh and it makes her shudder in anticipation. I want this, I want this, I want this.

The tiny flame inside her grows, warming the chill around her soul.

Vi jerks when Data's tongue touches her skin, then his lips. He plants a trail of kisses up her body, stopping to lick her breasts and clavicles while he works to undo her pants and then his own.

“Do you want this?” she asks, suddenly frantic. “Can you feel this?”

“I feel nothing but this, Vi,” he tells her, positioning himself at her opening. “I want it so badly.”

Her eyes fall closed and she pushes her body up, onto his. A gasp escapes his lips as he wraps his arms under her, pulling her closer. Vi moans, fingernails digging into synthetic flesh while he finds his momentum. Lips clash and cheeks flush. 

“I love you, Vi.” Data whispers, barely audible.

The flame inside is an inferno.

“What took you so long?” she rocks her hips hard into his, eliciting a spastic jerk and another moan. “I love you too.”

Sweat beads on her flesh, her spine pushing hard into the springs of the lounge beneath her. She feels no pain, only the building pressure in her core. When it boils over, she cries out his name and pulls him hard against her. The sensation sends him over the edge and he buries his face between her neck and shoulder. 

Vi is fighting to catch her breath again, but this time with lust on her lips and her head resting on Data's chest.

“Thank you,” she says. He doesn't reply but his fingers run through her hair, then wrap around her waist and embrace her. 

She exhales, not wanting to speak but knowing she has to. She looks up into his golden eyes and smiles. He was right. She can feel just fine. It only takes someone to remind her. He smiles back, lovingly.

“Computer,” she says sadly. “End simulation.”

Everything shimmers, then disappears and she is alone. She pulls her clothes on slowly, a weight on her chest and in her heart. The flame is dying out again. 

The holodeck doors slide open and she steps out into the hall of the Enterprise. Vi sighs and deletes the program from the computers memory. 

“Did you find your training enlightening?” the real Lieutenant Commander Data asks from behind her. 

“Yes,” she replies as she turns to face him. “Thank you.”

He smiles and she once against pushes her weight onto her toes to take his face in her hands and kiss him. Her lips linger there. He really is warm. And his lips really are sweet. She doesn't want to pull away, but she does, blushing slightly.

“What was that for?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Because I like you, Data,” Vi tells him. “And because I needed it.”

He leans down to kiss her back lightly. His lips don't linger though. “I needed it as well.” When he turns to walk away, Vi feels a warmth spread in her chest.

A tiny flame is burning brightly.


End file.
